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This research has led to the creation of new business sectors in laser development for medical and healthcare applications, which has enabled the creation of a world-wide market worth US$96 million in 2011, and a local spin-out, Fianium Ltd, which now has more than 50 employees and an annual turnover of around £10 million. Exploiting a radically new optical component invented at the University of Southampton, the microstructured optical fibre (MOF), this research has led to economic benefit through the creation of hundreds of jobs worldwide, and enabled the development of new diagnostic and medical technologies.
Ultra-precise Bragg grating writing-technology, invented in the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC), has led to impacts in the areas of security, safety, detection of bio-hazards and the underpinning laser technology currently being pursued for clean energy generation for future energy security. This case study highlights two aspects of the technology namely: planar-based for optical microchip sensors in areas such as portable detection of biohazards, which has resulted in the spin-out Stratophase, and fibre-based, inside the US National Ignition Facility (NIF), the world's largest laser system, based in California, built for fusion-energy research, which has ORC fabricated fibre Bragg gratings within its laser amplifier chains. These ultra-high precision laser-written engineered gratings have enabled important advances in biosecurity, management of environmental hazards and clean energy research.
Aston's fibre Bragg grating research on optical sensing has had a global commercial impact, in particular the development of low-cost fibre FBG sensor interrogation methods. The work has been carried out with a diverse range of companies (including BAE Systems, Airbus, Insensys, Schlumberger) working across different sectors including oil and gas aerospace and marine. Specific impacts include the acquisition of 70% of the stock of Insensys Wind for US$15.7 million by Moog in 2009 and continuing employment by Smart Fibres, Moog Insensys and Astasense.
Optical fibre sensor technology developed at Cranfield has supported development and subsequent sales of state-of-the-art superconducting magnet systems made by Oxford Instruments. The sensors provide detailed information on the magnets' performance that is critical to successful and safe operation. The fibre sensors have been deployed in:
Cranfield's research contributed to a doubling of the engineering and design staff at Oxford Instruments and 20% increases in turnover and technical staff at an instrumentation company, AOS Technology.
Researchers at the University of Southampton were the first in the world to introduce ytterbium-doped silica fibre as an optical gain medium. The work led to the creation of a new business sector around efficient industrial fibre lasers, which enable new manufacturing processes in the automotive, aviation, defence and medical device industries, with a reduction in carbon footprint relative to earlier technologies. The economic impact of this work includes the UK foothold in the $2 billion global industrial laser market through the success of two spin out companies — Fianium and SPI Lasers — with a combined turnover of £50 million, employing close to 300 people
High power fibre laser research undertaken at the University of Southampton has led to the creation of a new business sector in the generation of highly efficient and highly practical fibre laser technology. This has revolutionised areas of industrial material processing and enabled the development of specialist components for high-end industries (such as aviation and defence) as well as an array of new medical devices, procedures and manufacturing technologies. The research is also directly responsible for the commercial success and sustained growth of a spin-out company, SPI Lasers Ltd, which has an annual turnover of over £40 million and employs more than 250 people in the Southampton area.
New commercial gas sensing technology developed from research at the University of Strathclyde brings extensive technical, operational, safety and cost benefits to applications such as mine safety and leak detection in methane production, storage, piping and transport systems. World-wide commercial sales (in Japan, China and the USA) began in late 2010 through a spin out company, OptoSci Ltd. Sales are growing and have amounted to a total of £250k since launch plus a customisation contract for £193k, leading to jobs sustainability and growth. In addition to economic impacts, the technology also brings health and safety benefits in the gas distribution and mining industries through human safety assurance in the event of gas leaks / build up.
Photonic crystal fibres are a new form of optical fibre developed at the University of Bath from 1996 to the present. Our work has led to the creation of new companies, new business sectors for established companies and stock products for large component suppliers. Our key patents (now sold) continue to dominate technological developments. The estimated annual world market for photonic crystal fibre is between $35M and $70M. Users include industries and academic institutions involved in physical and biomedical imaging, microscopy, spectroscopy, sensing, metrology and laser gyroscopes.
Today's global telecom systems are powered by technology developed at the University of Glasgow. This technology has been utilised, endorsed and developed by a series of internationally successful companies, facilitating multimillion pound investment from across Europe and the USA for the companies.
Gemfire Europe acquired the University of Glasgow IP and technology and between 2008 and 2012 launched a range of `green' products with reduced power consumption. The company's revenues reached $12m annually and in 2013, Gemfire was one of the world's top five planar lightwave circuit companies. Gemfire was bought by Kaiam, one of the world's market-leading optical networking companies in April 2013, stimulating further innovation and investment in the production of high-speed components for the global data networking market.
The world's longest high capacity terrestrial commercial communications system, now deployed worldwide, was developed from Aston University's pioneering research on the concept of dispersion managed solitons. The concepts and expertise from this research were used to develop and implement the associated system design for high capacity (1Tb/s) WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) transmission over 1000s of kilometres. Commercial development was led by Prof Doran and the core team from Aston who left the University to found Marconi-Solstis, a part of Marconi plc. Prof Doran and other key members of this team have since returned to Aston The system, now owned by Ericsson, (but still called Marconi MHL3000) has current annual sales of order $100M, and employs hundreds of people worldwide.